The Latest

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

WEEK ONE
The CW's The Vampire Diaries spin-off The Originals actually aired for the first time on Thursday, but I'm not counting that as the premiere since it was apparently mostly a repeat of the backdoor pilot. Its first totally original episode came on the next Tuesday, when it brought almost all of that Thursday audience over. It averaged a solid 0.9 demo, tying as the third-biggest show of the CW's week (with Wednesday pair Arrow/The Tomorrow People). Given it faced two of broadcast's biggest dramas (Agents of SHIELD and NCIS), this was a pretty good showing.

WEEK TWO
In week two, The Originals was the first of three straight 8/7c CW shows to take a huge uptick, improbably rising by 22% to a 1.1. At the time, it was actually bigger than the previous week's episode of mothership The Vampire Diaries, though TVD ended up having its own uptick later in the week. It tied Arrow as the network's second-biggest show in 18-49 last week.

PROGNOSIS
This show brought over so many characters from the mothership that it seemed like a solid bet for success, but based on last week's uptick and the relatively positive reviews, it looks like it might have potential to do even better than I expected. There's no doubt that it at least has the self-starting capability to justify the CW leading off Tuesday with it. Renew.

9 comments:

It's a clear renew. By the way, the show didn't bring that many characters from the mothership. The only regular which came was Klaus. Rebekah was a very heavy recurring during season 4, so I guess you could count her as well. Other than that, Elijah was recurring but spend tones of episodes without showing up (and has only appeared in the pilot here anyway) and Hayley had been in like 4 or 5 episodes and was a very minor character. Nothing to do with the ratings, just wanted to point that out. I am enjoying the show way way more than I thought i would so I am very glad for these ratings.

It's still early and perhaps I'm being hyperbolic, but this seems like one of the biggest wins of the entire season. As a self-starter, it has opened up a whole new night for The CW and freed up its lead-ins for other new shows. It's not hard to imagine The CW having four decent nights next season, especially considering Whose Line is still on the bench.

I'm increasingly bullish about The CW, and think the network has been slowly gaining momentum ever since Mark Pedowitz took over. I think The CW's development slate seems promising, especially mid-season drama The 100, which seems both on-brand and appealing to a broader audience, and the planted Flash spin-off, which seems like a brand that would have a built-in audience beyond The CW and Arrow.

Will it be enough to make the enterprise profitable and get affiliates to re-sign in 2016? It'll be interesting to find out.

At this rate the CW might overtake NBC in scripted average. Although given the oddly low ad rates, advertisers priced in a season of collapse. Not normally the worst thing to bet on in CDub land, but seemingly a bad bet...

If the advertisers are paying less but getting more eyeballs than they projected, then they made a good bet by getting a bigger bang for their commercial buck. It's bad for The CW to under-price its shows, certainly, but this means two things: the network can charge more for scatter pricing and, if this steady/upward trend holds, can seek an above average rate increase for next season.

I don't think the ad-rates have a withstanding value for the entire season, that would be too biased towards the advertisers. I would guess that they are revised mid fall or something like that, no? I find the whole system pretty strange apparently, because apparently if advertisers under-estimate a show, they get a bigger bang for their buck but the reverse is not true, which means that if they over-estimate it, the ad buyer gets make good ads later to make their purchase of ratings points whole.